fredvarcoe.com

From www.photomichaelwolf.com

Text from Kyoto Journal 55

(A stunning little piece. It could equally apply to other places [I was thinking Korea]. Enjoy.)

“On one of my walks through Beijing, I discovered the chair shown on the previous page. It stood in front of a small shop where one could buy, amongst other things, delicious dumplings and soy milk. The shop owner, a young, rather fat man, was sitting on the chair as if it were a throne. And what a wonderful chair it was, propped up on one side by an old spingle and two bricks, and on the other its weak leg was splinted with a piece of wood and some plastic string.

“I set up my camera and tripod and proceeded to take some photographs. As so often when I work in China, a large crowd of people gathered behind me and bombarded me with questions. ‘Why are you taking photographs of that chair; it’s so ugly’ people asked me. `You are making fun of China,’ an older woman hissed as she held her hand in front of my lens. I turned to her and explained: ‘This is an old chair which has had a long and hard life. When I look at it, I do not see an ugly chair. I see a chair with a strong character, like a person who has lived for 80 years and has not given up the will to live even though life has been hard.’ The woman looked at me and shook her head: `I don’t believe you. You are a foreigner who is trying to show how backward the Chinese are. Why don’t you take a picture of a new chair?’

“I finished taking the portrait of the chair, packed up my equipment and walked on. Later that day, I walked by the shop again in order to have another look at the chair. It was gone. When I asked the owner where it was, he said: ‘After you left, the public security police came and smashed it into 100 pieces. They said it was shameful for China and that I should buy a new one.’ ”

(Thanks to Michael Wolf for permission to run this.)

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

Fred Varcoe is a freelance journalist, loving father, useless husband and desperate golfer who plays his music LOUD!

He is the former sports editor at The Japan Times (fired), former editor of the Number 1 Shimbun (fired), two-time former secretary of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (dumped) and currently contributing editor to Metropolis magazine.

Fred has written for dpa, Reuters, UPI, Billboard, Time Out, Virgin Atlantic’s Hot Air, Volleyball World, the International Volleyball Federation, Golf International, The Golf Times and a number of Japan-based publications. Many of his stories have been stolen and appeared in British newspapers and on websites under other people’s names.

He has done editing work for various publications and companies, including the Japan Football Association, Nissan, Metal One, Home and Away, Japan Railways and PanOrient News.

Fred has also written lyrics for musicians in Japan (Masahiro Motoki, Kyoji Yamamoto, Orange Kandy) and South Korea (Sinawe), served as an agent for British songwriter Warren Harry and helped with several music projects in Japan. His lyrics are actually really fucking good.

He was born in an area of Kent that has since been annexed by London and grew up in the English county of Monmouthshire, which has since been annexed by Wales. He is the founder and currently only member of the Monmouthshire Liberation Front.

He has lived in Occupied Kent, Occupied Monmouthshire, Hertfordshire, London, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Japan, and has spent far too much time (or perhaps not enough) in Thailand and South Korea.

He is married and has a daughter, who has already started to take over the world, so you’d better be nice to her (and to her father).

Fred plays all his music at Volume 11.